


Oh thy beloved stars.

by grahamstarling91



Category: Hannibal (TV), Hannibal Lecter Series - All Media Types
Genre: Multi
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-12-22
Updated: 2019-01-28
Packaged: 2019-09-24 15:34:44
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 7
Words: 18,813
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17103278
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/grahamstarling91/pseuds/grahamstarling91
Summary: What if Clarice Starling was in the Hannibal TV show? Futher than that: what if Will and Clarice had a relationship entirely apart from Hannibal? Heavily inspired by this: http://brynhilde7139.tumblr.com/post/141290956175/some-random-sketches-of-hannibal-will-graham-and buckle up because it's going to be interesting retelling canon.





	1. apéritif part one

“Everyone has thought about killing someone, one way or another,”

The droning voice of Will Graham played out from behind the podium of the auditorium. It was clear from the sound of his voice that he was not comfortable, yet he stood in front of a handful of individuals that made up the student body at the FBI Academy in Quantico Virginia. Telling them about one of the more recent cases he had experienced. The students themselves had expressions ranging to enraptured to simply bored. Not that Will had noticed given the way that he refused to meet their eyes. Instead his own scanned throughout the room, quick and unsettled as looking for something that was not there.

“Be it your own hand or the hand of God,” His statement could have been taken as dismissive, it was the next that could cause a shiver down someone’s spine. “Now think about killing Mrs Marlow,” His fingers clicked to the next slide of the presentation on the screen behind him to reveal the image of a woman lying in a pool of blood spilling out from the wound in her neck. The chalkboard below the screen revealing that they had been studying this case for at least the last hour.

“Why did she deserve this?” He asked the class, willing them to get into the mindset of the killer. “Tell me your design,” The male then abandoned the clicker onto the podium and closed the lid of his laptop showing that the lecture was over. “Tell me who you are.”

Will himself was more than set to go home, the idea of spending the evening with his dogs and his wife all too enrapturing. He found social situations tiring and would usually seek his own company, with but a few exceptions, where ever possible. The appearance of someone else in the room, however, saw such a dream fall short.

Jack Crawford stood to one side of the stage, a permanent frown etched into his dark features, the hands dug deep into his pockets gave Will the impression that he must have seen the last five minutes of the lecture at least. Curious how patient even the most rash of people could be when they wanted something. Still Graham didn’t act as if he has noticed the other, instead he simply placed his glasses back onto his face and began to place his folders back into his bag.  Jack did not seem to grasp the fact that he did not want to be spoken to and instead opened his mouth.

“Mr Graham,” the male in question took a step closer to the other “Special agent Jack Crawford. I head the behavioural science unit,” He held out his palm to greet the other more formally

“We’ve met” His words were short, voice apathetic as if he wished the other were not there at all, even as he shook his hand.

“Yes,” Jack nods, eyes catching on the ground for a moment “We had a disagreement when we opened up the museum,”

“I disagreed with what you named it,”

“The, uh, evil minds research museum,”

“It’s a little hammy Jack,” Will commented only then realising that he really wasn’t about to get out of the conversation anytime soon, placing his laptop bag down for the moment.

“I see you’ve hitched your horse to a teaching post,” Jack commented in a clear move to change the topic. “And I also understand it’s difficult for you to be social,”

“Well, I’m just talking at them, not listening to them,” He blinked avoiding eye contact still “It’s not social,” Will’s attention never seemed to be able to settle, unlike Jack’s who’s eyes had been fixed on Will’s features as he spoke.

“I see,” he nodded before raising a hand towards the other’s glasses “May I?” With that he fixed the other’s frames so they were in their specific place. An odd movement coming from someone who was closer to a stranger than someone Will knew intimately. “Where do you fall on the spectrum?”

“My horse is hitched to a post that is closer to asperger’s and autistics than narcissists and sociopaths,” He speaks messing with his coat as to give the impression that he wanted to leave.

“But you can empathise with them?”

“I can empathise with anybody, it’s less to do with a personality disorder than a rather active imagination,”

“Um…” Jack Crawford breathed as he placed a hand on the other’s bag in order to draw the other’s attention back to him. “Can I borrow your imagination,”

Will movement to respond was stopped by the set of the doors at the back of the auditorium flying open, so sudden in a manner that they succeeded in making Crawford jump.

A female stepped into the room, a bag was thrown over her shoulder, a bounce in her step as she began to descend the stairs, auburn ponytail swinging behind her. Clearly Clarice Starling had given up waiting for the male to come to her. She had not noticed Will’s company upon entering and then proceeded to make herself busy watching where she put her feet as she came down the stairs.

Clarice was younger than Will, who was five years her senior but was a strong agent in her own right having earned her place in the bureau through hard work before being placed at Will’s side. He had once overheard someone claim that they had known it was only matter of time until the two of them were together romantically since they first seen them together, that and the fact that Will and Clarice were never more than five minutes behind each other. In many ways, he had to guess that they were right, although the male couldn’t help but wish Ardelia would get involved in someone else’s business rather than being so caught up in what really should have only mattered to him and his wife.

“Alright Graham I hope you’re ready to get some food because I don’t want to be here another minute,” she commented, accent showing she was from one of the southern states. Only then when her feet had reached the ground did she bother looking up. Her stance changed in a moment, going from something comfortable to something wary, something protective. “Oh-“ She noted in surprise. “Jack. What the hell do you want?” Will was even more grateful than usual that Starling was there to get rid of any unwanted attention.

“Agent Starling,” Graham watched the other greet her with a nod. “Why don’t I fill you in while we’re walking? We can even get some of that lunch you were talking about,”

 

-

 

The smell of Clarice’s coffee was bitter in the air as the three of them walked through the academy, Will himself had elected not to get any food, something about Jack’s visit told him that he would soon need all his focus, something he (unlike Clarice) could not give if he was chewing a recently purchased grilled cheese. They were supposed to be having an afternoon to themselves, one of the many he owed her, but their plans had now had to be pushed aside. For that moment he simply had to be glad that the female was at least permitted to be at his side.

 “Eight girls abducted from eight different Minnesota campuses all in the last eight months,”

 “I thought there were seven?” Clarice speaks, eyes watching Jack like a hawk defensive, Will presumed, over him.

“There were,”

“When did you tag the eighth?” Will spoke a brow raised.

“About three minutes before I walked into your lecture hall,”

“You're calling them abductions because you don’t have any bodies?” This wasn’t Will’s first case of disappearances, he had made a living in getting into the heads of serial killers, he knew how they worked.

“No bodies, no parts of bodies, nothing that comes out of bodies. Nothing.”

“Then those bodies weren’t taken from where you think they were taken,”

“Then where were they?” Clarice asked. As a like as the two of them could be at times her mind did not work the same as his. Will knew she had always found it easier to pursue the viewpoint of the victim than the killer, and even then she could not walk backwards through a crime scene in the same way.

“I don’t know,” he breathes, glancing at her. “someplace else,”

“All of them abducted on a Friday, so they wouldn’t have to be reported missing until a Monday” Jack notes as they began to reach the case room. “Now however he’s covering his tracks he needs a weekend to do it,” 

Inside the room, there was a large board showing pictures of each of the missing girls, a map showing their last known locations, official reports and post-it notes with the scribbled notes of the agents who were trying to solve the case. It was full of people working but Graham did his best to file them out, focusing on Jack, Clarice and those girls on the board.

Will took a moment to study the pictures before Jack added another post-it and handed both him and Clarice a photograph.

“Number eight?” Will spoke.

“Elise Nichols,”

Will’s eyes look down at Elise’s picture as Jack speaks. She was a happy brunette, grinning at the camera, but that was not surprising given that families always wanted to give the illusion of their loved ones being alright. Then his attention, perhaps predictively, flicked to Clarice watching her cross her arms about her chest.

“St cloud state on the Mississippi. Disappeared on Friday, was supposed to house-sit for her parents over the weekend, feed the cat. She never made it home,”

“One through seven are dead don’t you think?” Will’s voice was not one full of sympathy, rather instead his tone was rather empty, matter of fact. Despite his empathy, compassion was never his strong suit. “He’s not keeping them around, he’s got himself a new one,”

“So we focus on Elise Nichols,”

Will’s eyes were not on Jack even as he spoke, eyes on the board. He wondered if Jack had spoken to Clarice he might have known he wasn’t the best for continuing conversation.

“They’re all um… Very mall of America,” Will speaks pinning Elise’s picture to the board. “That’s a lot of wind-chafed skin,” 

“Same hair colour, same eye colour,” Agent Starling reads off from where she was looking at the board a few meters away, seemingly wanting to highlight certain facts to Will. “Same height, same weight. Do you have any idea about a connection?”

Will shook his head. He was aware that it was him that Crawford wanted, but the two of them had always worked best through bouncing ideas off of each other.

“So what is it about all these girls?” Jack asked.

“Well, I um,” Will had always had a habit of tripping over his words. “It’s not about all these girls, it’s about one of them. He’s like Willy Wonka, every girl he takes is a candy bar and hidden among all those candy bars is the one true intended victim. Which if we follow through on our metaphor, is your golden ticket,”

“So is he warming up for his golden ticket, or just reliving whatever it is he did to her?” Considering the man’s position he seemed rather close minded about what was to be a psychopath, at least to Will to whom it was reading a finely tuned piece of sheet music.

“The golden ticket wouldn’t be the first to be taken or she wouldn’t be the last, he um would hide how special she was. I mean I would - Wouldn’t you?”

There was a look of surprise that framed Jack Crawford’s features so much so that Will could practically predict the words that came next even as he turned his back.

“I want you to get closer to this,”

“No.” It was a resounding sound from both Will and Clarice as if they had spoken as one and Will could practically feel the other tense from where she was standing on the other side of the room.

“No,” Will spoke again. “You have Heimlich in Harvard, and Bloom at Georgetown. They do the same thing I do,”

“That’s not exactly true, is it? You have a very specific way of thinking about things,”

“Has there been a lot of discussion about the uh specific way I think?”

“You make jumps you can’t explain,”

“No, no the evidence explains,”

“Then help me find some evidence,”

Will can hear Clarice sigh from across the room, she already knew where this was headed and he could tell she didn’t like it. He shoots her a glance before responding.

“That may require me to be sociable,”

 

-

 

The journey to Duluth Minnesota was a relatively uneventful one. Clarice stayed at Will’s side wanting him to know that whatever he was about to face he wasn’t doing it alone. She had watched him do all of this before, knew the traps his mind had a habit of falling into, and thus had developed the habit of being cautious.

Jack had stated that it was only right that she should go on the case with him considering she was the only real FBI agent between them, but as far as Clarice was concerned there would have been no way he could have stopped her, even if he wanted to. The southern female could be a force of nature when she wanted to be, besides the FBI needed her just as much as they needed Will, even if for different reasons. She was one of their best agents, they all knew it.

The car journey was near silent following Crawford’s explanation of what had already happened at the house. Clarice stared off out of the window, one of the many of her small habits that Will knew well. She ran through ways she could help Will if she needed to as well as noting that they may not find anything in the house at all.

The FBI had chartered a private plane to get the team to the Nichols household. It was certainly easier than any form of mass FBI road trip across states. It was then that the two of them really had a chance to talk. Seated towards the back of the plane Clarice was grateful for the fact Jack seemed to realise the two of them would need some space.

“I hope you know the idea that the idea of you in the field is a terrible one,”

Clarice’s eyes are on the case file in front of her so that Will doesn’t have to look at her while she speaks. She had sat opposite him on purpose knowing he probably favoured the space.

“I understand your want to solve the case, I do, but if you get too deep… Will,”

She was not agent Starling at that moment, rather instead a rather war-torn version of the doe-eyed girl she had been when she asked him to marry her.

“Clarice…” Will breathes out looking at her.

She simply raises a brow in response.

“I’m not asking you to be careful as your wife, I’m telling you as your partner,” Clarice had always been more harsh edges and bluntness more than being soft spoken. “You know what happened last time,”

“I can’t back out now,” There was a softness in Will’s voice as he spoke to her, that was different to the way he sounded to anyone else. Clarice had noticed it years ago and yet it never failed to put her at ease.

“I know,” She nodded.

Clarice was also aware that no matter what the personal cost might have been her Will was also Elise Nichols’ best chance.

“So we go in there, you use that brain of yours to solve the case as quickly as possible and then we go home. Alright?”

It was Will’s turn to nod then before the two of them drifted into a comfortable silence.

 

-

 

The faces of Elise’s parents were sullen and worn, the most visual indicator of what they had been through in the last day or so. They needed sleep, but Graham doubted the two of them would ever really be able to rest again.

“She could have gone off by herself,” Elise’s father spoke from where he was sat at their kitchen table. His voice was fractured, upset. “She was a very interior young woman… She didn’t like living in her dorm, I could see how the pressure of school could have gotten to her,” He was clearly trying to rationalise the emotions he was going through to the three agents that were in the room with him. “She likes trains maybe she just got on a train and-“

“She looks like the other girls?” It’s the voice of the man’s wife that cuts him off. Despite the way she was shaking, on the whole, it seemed like Mrs Nichols had taken the blow better than her husband. Will’s back was turned away from them and yet he could hear a sort of resilience in her tone.

“Yes. She fits the profile,” Clarice spoke from where she was sat beside them at the table, sitting at the victim’s level as if that might make the whole incident easier to deal with.

“Could Elise still be alive?” Desperation, an individual would ignore all the facts if that means they could continue to cling to that small shred of hope left in them.

“We simply have no way of knowing,” Answered Jack.

Will had busied himself looking about the home for anything that could have been considered a clue or evidence keeping his back to the parents as he spoke once more. “How’s the cat?”

“What?” Will turned in time to watch a look of confusion dawn over the face of Mrs Nichols. The cat had quite clearly been an afterthought.

“How’s your cat?” He repeated. “Elise was supposed to feed it. Was the cat weird when you came home? It must have been hungry it didn’t eat all weekend,”

Mr Nichols took the time to shrug before responding “I didn’t notice,”

Will nodded almost awkwardly trying not to alarm the two people in front of him that that small phrase could point to something much larger but caught Jack’s gaze to try to tell him.

“Would you excuse the two of us for a moment please?”

The confused, grieving parents were left in the watchful care of agent Starling as the two men stepped to one side, speaking in little above a whisper.

“He took her from here. She got on a train, she came home, she fed the cat. Then he took her,”

At the news Jack sighed, sparing a glance at the parents before phoning into the team. “The Nichols house is a crime scene I need ERT immediately. I want Zeller, Katz and Jimmy Price. Yes, and a photographer,”

“Why is it now a crime scene?”

Will watches Clarice’s attention shift to Jack who looked rather panicked at the thought of having to explain what was about to happen. Luckily instead Will cut in with another question.

“Can I see your daughter’s room?”

“Police were up there this morning,” Mr Nichols comments unnecessarily before moving to lead Will up the stairs.

The cat was pawing at the door to Elise’s room when they reached it. Out of habit Mr Nichols reached to open the door, only for Will’s hand to settle over his wrist.

“No, I’ll get that. Mr Nichols. Please put your hands in your pockets and avoid touching anything,” That was the first time Will had really looked into the other’s face, and even that only lasted as long as the command before his eyes were somewhere else once more.

“We’ve been in and out of here all day,” he seemed convinced that it would be of little help now.

“You can hold the cat if it’s easier,” An almost soft look holds Will’s features, it’s the first he had come to compassion since setting foot in the house.

If Clarice had been in ear shot Will was sure she would have made a comment about him and animals, instead the moment passed as Mr Nichols bends down to scoop up the feline and Graham opened the door.

Inside the fresh corpse of the girl in question was lying on the bed.

Characteristically Mr Nichols made a move to dash forward but Will caught him and instead sent him to fetch agent Starling (it was always easiest to ask for her) and then to wait outside. The cat was dropped during the realisation.

Will listened to the sound of him disappearing down the stairs, as he looked at Elise’s face. She looked peaceful enough that she could have been sleeping, despite the deathly paleness of her skin.

Moments later one of the chairs downstairs, feet were on the stairs once more and Clarice called out for him once she reached the landing. “Will?”

He didn't respond, there was no need to considering she found him a few seconds later, only staying in the room a second before rushing back to the kitchen presumably to retrieve Jack and tell him what had been found.

Sure enough, Jack’s silhouette appeared around the doorway a moment later, Will watched him look around the room before he became the centre of attention.

“Take your time,” He spoke softly as if Will was a child privy to some evidence, it annoyed him immensely and yet he let whatever comment was bubbling up in his throat go unsaid. “When you’re ready to talk you talk. If you don’t feel like it, you don’t talk. We’ll be downstairs, you let me know when you’re ready for us to come in.” With that, he left Will alone in the bedroom.

Things had an odd way of passing when Will was alone, his mind wrapped up in whatever case he might be working on. To start with he was in the room with Elise observing what he could. Next, he was out on the balcony still facing the dead girl his back to the members of the team who had now arrived. Then finally he was stood before her bed once more, time reversed so that there were no wounds in her chest. He fell to his knees before her, hands wrapping around her neck as so that he could continue to squeeze and squeeze ridding her of the life inside of her. She’s clawing at his neck face panicked as-

“You’re Will Graham,” The sound of an unfamiliar female’s voice is enough to break him out of his thoughts. She was a tall, dark-haired Asian woman, with a chatty voice who seemed oddly at home investigating a crime scene, later she would be introduced to him as Beverley Katz a fibre analysis specialist hand picked by Jack for his team.

“You’re not supposed to be in here,” Will reproached. She didn't seem to pay any attention to Will’s words.

“You wrote the standard monograph on time of death by insect activity,” There’s an impressed look on her face that Will doesn’t care for. “I found antler velvet in two of the wounds,” She speaks before a different fact holds her attention. “You... not real FBI?” 

“I’m a special investigator,”

The female raises her eyebrows at the answer. “Never been an FBI agent?”

“Uhmm… Strict screening procedures,” The way that Will speaks that he is quite clearly unhappy with the conversation. He’s uncomfortable, voice short, uneasy. Fingers picking at the blue rubber gloves that he had no memory of putting on

“Detects instability… You unstable?” Katz asks tilting her head back, looking at Will like he was some form of an oddity.

It was then that Jack returned to the room, saving Will so he would not have to speak. It was the first time in this in this entire mess that Will could claim to be nearly glad to see him.

“You know you’re not supposed to be in here,” 

Beverly’s tone shift as she addresses her superior. “I found antler velvet in two of the wounds like she was gored, I was looking for velvet in the other wounds but I was interrupted,” It was then that Will noticed that Starling, Price, a stout man in his forties with greying hair, and Zeller his taller, younger counterpart with a receding hairline had entered the room. It was Zeller that chose to speak first whilst Will moved to gaze out of the window.

“Hold on, excuse me. Deer and elk pin their prey okay. They put all their weight into their antlers and the suffocate a victim. That’s how they’d kill a fox or a coyote,”

Then Starling chose to speak up. “Elise Nichols’ ribs are broken. Do you think that’s it?” Her focus was on Will, seemingly the only one in the room that was comfortable with him.

Evidence of Will’s own relaxing was shown in the turn of his head, still, he dismissed that idea. “Antler velvet is rich in nutrients it actually promotes healing. he may have put it there himself,”

“He was trying to heal her?” Jack spoke drawing his eyebrows to the centre of his forehead.

“He wanted to undo as much as he could, given that he’d already killed her,”  

“He put her back where he found her,” Jack replied unimpressed.

Will shook his head in reaction to his own thoughts rather than Jack’s words. “Whatever he did to the others he couldn’t do it to her,”

“Is this his golden ticket?” Clearly, Jack was thinking that it was an act of sympathy that lead the killer to put Elise back in bed rather than finishing what he started.

“No, no,” Will spoke “This is an apology,” He didn’t need to look at the faces of most of the others in the room to know they were horrified. “Does anyone have any aspirin,”

Clarice stepped forward then, reaching into her jacket pocket for a bottle before then placing a hand on Will’s arm, a small touch but it helped to keep him grounded. He didn’t need to watch Clarice to know that she was now looking rather jaggedly at Jack.

“If you don’t mind I think it’s time I take Will home, he’s done being your guinea pig for the day”

 

-

 

It wasn’t a private plane on the way home, Jack had simply booked them onto the next flight, Clarice was grateful for the fact. They weren’t agents, simply a couple traveling home. She did her best to relax slightly, although she wasn’t sure how much she could given what the two of them had witnessed at the house. Cases didn’t have the same way of haunting her that they used to, but they still made it hard for her to sleep.

She rested her head against Will’s shoulder both drawing comfort from such a familiar contact between them and tried to give him the impression that she wasn’t watching him quite as intently as they both knew she was. Clarice had no idea what sort of reaction Will would have to Elise, if he had one at all. Every case they had worked on together had been different in that regard, sometimes Will was fine, others it took him weeks to shake off a killer. So the female kept checking on just how painful his head was feeling and hoped that she was at least of some comfort to him.

Agent Starling knew Will like the back of her hand and yet, even then there were parts of him that were a mystery to her, things that she had to leave him to deal with alone. The thought had been enough to make her sick, the few memories she had of her parents when she was growing up had them happy, facing things together. It was simply the price she had to pay for being in love with a man like Will Graham. There were just things the two of them had to face alone.

She remained vigilant even as the other shifted slightly so that his weight was on her and his breathing evened out. Her fingers combing through the brown curls that adorned his head. She could sleep later so long as she was able to bring him some momentary rest, besides it wasn’t a long flight and Will awoke when they began to land.

Their car was waiting for them when they reached the airport. It wasn’t a long drive, they had each done it hundreds of times, so she did not protest when Will offered to put himself behind the wheel. Clarice knew from experience that it was better to keep him occupied then let him wander into that mind of his.

They were most of the way home when she noticed a stray dog running up the road. The two of them had plenty of mouths to feed already, and yet upon the sight of the canine Clarice already knew what was about to happen it was simply a matter of waiting for the rest of her to catch up.

“Hey,” Will greets the blonde mutt, voice gentle driving a bit further up before the two of them pulled over. “Hey, hey. Come on,” He greets, getting out of the car in the hopes that the dog might come to him. Still, the beast paid him little attention until Clarice thought to get one of their many dog treats out of the car. Without a word she knelt down and gave it to him, sending a smirk over her shoulder as a hand coming to run through his fur. He had a leash and yet no tag and the state of the poor thing suggested that he had been alone for quite a while. She had no idea whether he would remain with them in the long term, but they certainly could not leave him.

Once the three of them were home Clarice quickly changed into some comfy bottoms and one of Will’s shirts before the two of them managed to convince the stray into the tin bathtub they used for all the dogs. Despite the cold of the night air Clarice still laughed as the bubbles splashed against her top. Momentary happiness contrasting heavily against the general mood of the day. 

Then once he was clean, dry and perhaps most importantly warm. Clarice and Will introduced the then newly named Winston to the rest of their pack of dogs, strays of all shapes and sizes. A family especially suited to them.

This was the Will Graham she had found herself in love with, the flannel shirt wearing one who wanted nothing more than to rescue animals in need of a home and sit on their porch in Virginia, everything with the FBI was secondary.

She let herself picture the two of them someplace happier on cold nights when she was without the man she loved. There are no cases, no FBI, no ghosts of her own in the closet. The two of them run an animal shelter, she smiles more. Afternoons are spent with pie and peach tea rather than cadavers. Still, that could never happen. Clarice lived for the thrill of the FBI just as much as Will did. It filled in holes made within her long before she ever knew Will Graham, put her in a position that meant she could really help people, let her at least believe that she was making some form of a difference.

The moment the female finally had a chance to sit down she fixed Will a nightcap (usually she would have protested, but nights like that were the exception) before settling down into his lap.

“Where are you?” Her voice is gentle as she speaks to him, any trace of her usual harshness had been left in the car until morning.

“Here,”

She hummed in response at that, not really believing him. Even with the way his arms had shifted to wrap around her, she was almost certain that at that moment she was almost an afterthought.

“Considering the way you’re giving me a dead leg I’d say you were the only thing on my mind,” he speaks, the closest he had been to giving her a real smile all day.

“Good,” The female spoke shaking her head with a laugh before moving slightly so that she wasn’t crushing Will under her weight. They weren’t kids dealing with their first few homicides anymore, Will wasn’t the cop who had been stabbed anymore and yet Clarice was protective of him all the same. Despite her ties to the FBI, between a case and Will, she would choose Will every time.


	2. apéritif part two

Nightmares were not anything new in the Starling-Graham household, between Will’s imagination and Clarice’s own ghosts it seemed like one of them woke up with a scream on their lips almost every other night. It was one of the things that drew the two of them together, Clarice had always thought, that understanding of each other. The fact that she could wake up screaming beside will as many times as she needed to and would feel no real judgement from him, who better to comfort her than someone who could understand every single thing she went through in her head. No. It was never like that. Clarice wasn’t the type to need saving even by the man she loved. The lambs in her dreams were her burden to bear, and she did her best not to bother Will with them where she could.

Still that night it would have been nice to have Will’s party trick on hand when she was faced with a Will shooting upright in their bed. She was dragged out of sleep by the movement even as the male did not make a sound.

“Will?” She questioned voice tired. “Darlin’ come back to sleep,” Her hand comes to rest on his arm before he turns to her and she began to notice something odd about his behaviour. His movements were jumpy, there was no focus in his eyes.

Everything else happened so quickly, one moment he was simply next to her, then suddenly he had a knee either side of her pinning her to the bed. No matter how loudly she seemed to shout the male couldn’t hear her, instead his hands moved to grasp at her neck, adding enough pressure that she knew her skin would be bruised come morning.

“Will!” She yelped best she could. “Will!”

It was only when her nails began to claw at the hand around her neck that he seemed to jolt awake.

“Clarice?” He cried, hands moving away in a moment.

She could tell by the look on his face that her Will was back even as she scrambled backwards and moved to put on the bedside light. Will had sweat through his t-shirt, it was a strange thing to notice in that moment.

“Will,” She spoke, doing her best to keep her voice even. “You need to tell me what’s going on right now,”

“I… I… I wasn’t here,” He panted. “I was someone else… Was I sleeping?” Clarice watched him carefully as he tried to piece everything together.

“This hasn’t happened before Will,” She spoke bluntly. “All these years, not once. What the hell changed?”

Clarice couldn’t help but notice the way he was shaking.

 

-

 

Thump, thump, thump, thump. The sound of Jack’s fist knocked on the case board as Clarice spoke. 

Clarice Starling had been an orphan her entire life, her parents had died when she was young and that was just something she had simply come to accept as time passed and yet if there was a singular paternal figure within her life he came under the guise of Jack Crawford. No matter how clumsy or out of place that sentence might have seemed. When she first began working for the bureau Jack had taken Starling under his wing and though technically she was no longer worked under his jurisdiction (current situation excluded) she still came running back every time he needed a favour.

They couldn’t let Will continue like this Clarice was certain of that, and yet she had no idea what to do. “Ask Alana if you have to,” she spoke. “We just can’t let him go on like this,” she spoke with a sigh. “I’m out of my depth here,”

“I wouldn’t put him out there if I didn’t think I could handle it,” Jack spoke though Clarice soon scoffed. “Alright, most of the time,”

“I’m blaming you for this Jack, help me fix it,”

 

-

 

The water was cold on Will’s features as he placed his head into the sink hoping the feeling might clear his head, or at least he thought it would until the water turned to blood. Still he took a moment closing his eyes before drying his face with a paper towel. 

“What are you doing in here?” Jack Crawford stormed into the room, anger in the way he was holding his shoulders.

“I enjoy the smell of urinal cake,” Will replied turning to face the other.

“Me too.” Jack spat “We need to talk,”

Then another agent stepped into the room hands moving towards the fly of his trousers. Jack turned to the man and yelled: “Use the ladies room!”

Needless to say that the agent left before Jack turned back around. He might not have been saying it to Will directly but Will could read easily enough the underlying anger in Jack’s actions

“You respect my judgement, Will?” He was pacing back and forward like he was close to hitting the other.

Will nodded in response “Yep,”

“Good, because we will stand a better chance of catching this guy with you in the saddle, and not putting the life of a good agent at risk,”

So Clarice had spoken to him. He couldn’t blame her if there was anyone he deserved to be mad at him about the previous night it was the wife he had managed to endanger.

“Yeah, I’m in the saddle,” He speaks. “Clarice was never in danger I wouldn’t have hurt her,” He’s aware the moment he speaks that he doesn’t sound convincing if he was Jack Crawford he wouldn’t have believed himself either “I’m just um… Confused which direction I’m pointing,”

Jack looks away from him then like he can’t believe what he’s hearing.

“I don’t know this kind of psychopath, never read about him. I don’t even know if he is a psychopath. He’s not insensitive, he’s not shallow,” Will mind was racing with thoughts, ideas, possibilities in many ways it was simply hard for the rest of him to catch up.

“You know something about him, otherwise you wouldn’t have said ‘this is an apology’. What is he apologising for?” 

“He couldn’t honor her, he... feels bad” Will speaks shuffling on his feet.

“Well feeling bad defeats the purpose of being a psychopath doesn’t it?” 

“Yes it does,” His voice broke then, some form of vulnerability.

“Then what kind of crazy is he?” Jack yelled fully.

“He couldn’t show her he loved her, so he put her corpse back where he found it whatever kind of crazy that it,”

“You think he loves these girls?”

“He loves one of them, and yes, by association, I think he has some form of love for the others,”

“There was no semen, there was no saliva. Elise Nichols died a virgin, she stayed that way,”

“That’s not how he’s loving them!” There was a hitch in Will’s own tone that as if to reflect both his uncomfortableness at Jack and the small amount of distance between them. “He wouldn’t disrespect them that way!” Still, Graham took a step forward. “He doesn’t want these girls to suffer. He kills them quickly and…” Will stopped for a moment choking on his next thought “To his thinking, with mercy.”

Jack nodded. “Sensitive psychopath risked getting caught so he could tuck Elise Nichols back into bed,”

“He has to take the next girl soon… cus’ he knows he’s gonna get caught. One way or the other,”

Jack sighed then hands running down over his face. “Do we need to separate you from Starling?”

A look of horror splits open onto Will’s features for just a second before he is able to regain his composure. A blinding thought of ‘no!’ is pushed away in further of something softer. “Have you asked Clarice what she wants?”

Jack chuckled at that thought. “No. Agent Starling would fight till the end of the world for what is hers, you’d be a fool not to know it,”

 

-

 

“Okay…” Price breathed as they unzipped the body bag holding the corpse of Elise Nichols. Various members of the team stood about the lab including Katz, Zeller, Starling and Graham himself. “Tried her skin for prints. Of course nothing,” They were dealing with a complex killer he was hardly the type to make such mistakes. “We did get a hand spread off her neck,”

“Report say anything about nails?” Beverly asked. Will wondered if she might be following a hunch, though that was quickly dismissed.

Then it was Zeller’s turn. “Fingernails were smudged when we took the scrapings. The scrapings were from her own hands when she scratched them she never scratched him,”

Clarice sighed. “One bit of metal is the only thing we have,” 

Will had had enough of such a pointless conversation, having chosen to stay quiet for most of it, his arms crossed about his chest. “We should be looking at plumbers, steamfitters, tool workers,” He sighed glancing to the floor for a moment before his attention turned back to Elise eyes drawn to the black of the bag in front of him where he could have sworn he saw her hanging in midair mounted onto antlers. Bleeding, bleeding, bleeding.

“Other injuries were probably but not conclusively post-mortem, ” Zeller’s voice sounded deep and far away, echoing as if they were underwater before coming closer again. “So not gored,”

“She has lots of piercings that look like they were caused by deer antlers,” Katz responded with a pointed look at the male. “I didn’t say the deer was responsible for putting them there,”

From across the body, Zeller held his hands up in surrender. It seemed to Will at that moment that the room had forgotten about him at least until he spoke once more. “She was mounted on them, like hooks. She may have been bled,” Price and Katz took the chance to jump at the sound.

Zeller meanwhile continued to search inside the girl’s body. “Her liver was removed,”

“See that,” He spoke clearly gesturing at something to show Price. “He took it out and then… Yep, he put it back in,”

 A confused look filled Clarice’s features as she turned her attention to Will from where she was standing beside Katz. “Why would he cut it out if he was just going to sew it back in…” Will watched a clearly distasteful thought occur in her mind. “Unless… Is there something wrong with it?”

“She had liver cancer,” Zeller answered clearly not on the same page. Clarice’s attention snapped back to Will, eyes seeming to search through him for any chance that she could be wrong.

Unfortunately, she was not.

“Yeah, he’s um... he’s eating them,” Will spoke nodding solemnly.

- 

Clarice stood rather awkwardly in the office of the psychologist Alana Bloom had recommended. On the whole, this was Jack’s idea. Something about giving Will a support network so that Clarice wouldn’t be dealing with the fallout from the case alone, or at least that was how he had sold it to her.

 As to why it had to be her that came to speak to this Doctor Lecter she had questioned that too, only to be met with the rather predictable answer that it made sense because she knew Will best. In Clarice’s mind that was the exact reason why she should be the last person expected to speak to someone about psychoanalysing him. Will was going to hate it.

The young agent’s thoughts were interrupted by the appearance of a male in the doorway to doctor Lecter’s office. She could only assume that this was Lecter himself.

“Good Morning,” He greeted, vaguely European accent hitting her ears.

He was dressed well, suit, tie, complete with a matching waistcoat. Silver hair and eyes that seemed to watch her carefully from the moment he noticed her standing there.

“Doctor Lecter my name is Clarice Starling may I speak with you?”

“You’re one of Jack Crawford’s aren’t you?” He spoke barely missing a moment.

“I am yes,” How the doctor could have known she was with the FBI Clarice wasn’t sure, Crawford had made it seem that he hadn’t had any contact with the other.

“He telephoned this morning, told me to go easy on you, whatever that meant. May I see your credentials?”

“Certainly,” Clarice spoke before taking a moment to pull her badge out of her blazer pocket and holding it up for the other to see.

“This wasn’t issued very long ago, was it? Almost looks like new,” He comments, having taken a moment to look it over. His attention to detail taking Starling by surprise.

“No, I only graduated from the academy three years ago,”

“I see. You must understand Clarice I’m not in the habit of socialising with FBI agents newly qualified or otherwise. Nevertheless please come in,”

Clarice wasn’t quite sure what he meant by that, whether or not she was supposed to read it as an attempt at being passive-aggressive. Still, it was only then that Clarice stood from her chair so that she might follow the other into the room.

The office itself was a large room, a large expensive looking carpet on the floor a sofa at one end a chair at the other. Scattered around the edge were cabinets full of artefacts, all of which it seemed from the short look Clarice managed to get at them, seemed rather odd to her admittedly untrained eye.

“Are you expecting another patient?” Agent Starling asked.

The doctor shrugged slightly in response. “We’re all alone,”

“Have you not got a secretary? Seems like such a place would be hard to run on your own,”

“I used to, she was predisposed to romantic whims. Followed her heart to the United Kingdom,”

How awkward Clarice was finding that moment must have been clear through her body language. Her arms were straight by her sides almost to the point of stiffness, eyes searching about the room looking for something to talk about. Some point of her had decided that by even setting foot in that room she had managed to betray Will in some form, she pushed the thought to the back of her mind.

“Did you do all those drawings Doctor?” she asked eyes catching sight of the ones laid out on the desk.

“Ah yes, that one is of my boarding school in Paris when I was a boy,”

“All that detail just from memory?”

“I learned from a very early age that nothing keeps your mind sharper than a pencil,”

“That must be how you managed to secure yourself an internship at John Hopkins. Alana Bloom said she served under you during her residency there,”

“You’re starting to make it sound like you’re investigating me, agent Starling,” The doctor remarked turning where he had previously had his back to her putting one of his books into its rightful place on his shelf.

“What? Oh no, did Jack not mention?” Her eyebrows creased in slight confusion, honesty filling her voice in a way she did not even notice. “Alana referred you to us as she thought you would be best at helping us with a very distinct profile. She even passed Jack your paper on social exclusion, though I must admit to not having read it yet,”

That caught Lecter’s interest, a light starting in his features.

“Just who would I be working on?”

 

-

 

Back at Quantico Hannibal stared at the case board featuring each of the missing girls. Will was sat in one of the chairs facing the desk Jack had wheeled into the room and Clarice herself leaned against one of the tables tucked against the left wall. 

“Tell me then, how many confessions?” Lecter’s voice was curious

“Twelve,” Clarice answered. “All of them false. Not one of them could list a single detail, at least not until they appeared on the tattler blog page thanks to Freddie Lounds,” Her voice was judgemental, tired even.

“Tasteless,” Will commented, eyes fixed to the table in front of him, clearly uncomfortable with a stranger in the room.

“Do you have trouble with taste?” Doctor Lecter asked it was the first time Clarice could note that he’d really spoke to her husband since he entered the room. His eyes were still on the board.

“My thoughts are often not… tasty,”

“Nor mine,” Hannibal turned to walk back over to them. “No effective barriers,”

“Oh I build forts,” Will commented before taking a sip from the coffee Clarice had thought to make him.

“Associations come quickly,”

“So do forts,”

Clarice watched the two of them intently, unsure of just why she was on edge. It was almost of if she could feel Will’s emotions there under her skin. That would be the strong sense of compassion her Aunt always said she had.

“Not fond of eye contact are you?”

“Eyes are distracting. You see too much, you don’t see enough and… and it’s hard to focus when you’re thinking um ‘oh those whites are really white’ or ‘he must have hepatitis’ or ‘oh is that a burst vein?’” Will spoke eyes fixed somewhere between the board and the table in front of him.

Clarice watched the doctor chuckle.

“So yeah, I try to avoid eyes wherever possible. Jack?” The fact that his attention had turned to the other male in the room was Will trying to signal that the conversation was over. However, if Lecter noticed then he paid no attention.

“Yes…” Crawford stepping back to his desk. Will begins to rifle through some papers before the Doctor spoke again. 

“I imagine what you see and learn touches everything in your mind. Your values and decency are present and yet shocked at your associations, appalled at your dreams. No forts in the bone arena of your skull for the things you love,”

A look of horror split across Will’s face in a way that was enough to cut Clarice to the bone. “Who’s profile are you working on?” His head turned to where agent Starling was stood behind him. “Who’s profile is he working on?”

Out of instinct rather than a rational decision, Clarice stepped forward to place a hand on his shoulder. Jack simply shuffled through papers and tried to seem uninterested.

“I’m sorry Will. Observing is what we do,” Hannibal said reaching for his tea “I can’t shut mine off any more than you can shut your’s off,”

“Please, don’t psychoanalyse me. You won’t like me when I’m psychoanalyzed,” He wasn’t speaking to Lecter, rather instead to Jack.

 “Will…” Clarice spoke feeling herself go to intervene, Will, however, paid no attention in a way that she knew he wouldn’t.

“Now if you excuse me I have to go give a lecture… On psychoanalysing,” Graham got up from the chair where he had been sat, hand lingering on Clarice’s own for just a moment then collected his coat and left the room.

There were a few beats of silence that followed before Clarice sighed and stepped forward to the seat that her husband had previously occupied.

“I must suggest that you don’t poke him like that doctor, Will finds it… uncomfortable when people try to get into his head,”

“What he has agent Starling is pure empathy. He can assume your point of view, or mine, and maybe some other points of view that scare him. It’s an uncomfortable gift, Ms Starling. Perception is a tool that is pointed on both ends,”

“You make it sound easy doctor,” Clarice spoke crossing her arms about her chest. 

“It is when you know what you’re doing,”

That drew a scoff from the female, always sceptical. “It’s going to take more than just that for me to think you’re worth poking around Will’s head,” This whole mess had been Jack’s idea not her’s. it was well within her rights to be wary. 

“Now now agent Starling I’m not sure it’s polite to test a person’s qualifications,”

“I’m only telling you my opinion doctor, you’ll either prove me wrong or you won't. Besides the first thing you did was look at my badge,”

She watched Lecter’s brows pull up in surprise, still, he seemed like the type to enjoy a challenge so he regarded her for a moment before speaking.

“Good nutrition has given you some length of bone but you are not one generation away from poor white trash are you, agent Starling?” He asked doing his best to in part imitate a southern accent. “And that accent you’ve tried so desperately to shed pure West Virginia. You spent so long dreaming of a way of getting out but in the end, you found yourself marrying Will anyway. You try not to show it too much given that you both value your professionalism but the ring you wear around your neck gives you away. The two of you are at least as close to married as Will will allow you to become. Tell me Agent Starling does it bother you how distant Will has a habit of being?”

Clarice sits silently for a moment, not daring to let any emotion show. The male was incredibly observant she had to admit that. “You see a lot doctor,” She commented, “But are you strong enough to point that high powered perception at the case?”

She could have sworn she saw a look of amusement cross Lecter’s features before his gaze turned to the board once more.

“This cannibal you have been getting to know; I think I can help good Will see his face,”

 

-

 

No matter how often Zeller might try to scare them away, the crows kept coming back. Landing on the girl’s body and pecking, pecking, pecking. If Will didn’t know better he might have claimed that the scene was something out of his very own head. The only real change was that other people could see it too.

In front of him was the corpse of a girl, laying across sets of antlers. The ends of which were spearing into her skin. It was a grotesque image, to say the least.

“The stag head was reported stolen last night about a mile from here,” Jack spoke from where he stood in front of both Clarice and Will eyes on the body.

“Just the head,” Will asked with a tilt of his head.

“Minneapolis homicide has already made a statement they’re calling him the Minnesota Shrike,”

“Like the bird?” Clarice questioned.

“Shrike’s a perching bird,” Price spoke standing up from where he had been kneeling nearby. “Impales mice and lizards on thorny branches and barb wire rips their organs right out of their body, puts them in a little birdie pantry and eats them later,”

“Can’t tell whether it’s sloppy or shrewd,” Jack scowled, clearly not wanting the stress of dealing with another body, as well as repulsed by the manner in which she had been found.

“He wanted her found this way,” Will spoke, frankly annoyed that the others weren’t seeing the bigger picture as he took a few step forwards, crouching by the body. “It’s petulant, I almost feel like he’s mocking her… or he’s mocking us,”

“Where did all his love go?” Jack questioned, glancing briefly to Clarice over his shoulder. She, Will noticed had chosen to stay further back from the body.

“Whoever tucked Elise Nichols into bed didn’t paint this picture,” Will responded with half attention.

“He took her lungs,” Zeller spoke voice beginning to waver as he continued “I’m pretty sure she was alive when he took ‘em out,”

“Our cannibal loves women he doesn’t wanna destroy them, he wants to consume them. To keep some part of them inside,” His voice showed some level of agitation as he stood up and waved his hand over the corpse. “This girls killer thought that she was a pig,” He then started to walk away from the scene. 

“So what?” Clarice spoke, clearly uncomfortable. “This is a copycat? A completely different killer?” 

“The cannibal that killed Elise Nichols had a place to do it and no interest in… in field cabookey. So he has a house or two,” He spoke with his hands as he talked. A clear sign of the puzzle pieces beginning to place together in his mind. Things occurring to him as he spoke. “Or a cabin, something with an antler room… He has a daughter. Same age as the other girls, same hair colour, same eye colour, same height, same weight. She’s an only child. She’s leaving home… He can’t stand the thought of losing her… She’s his golden ticket,”

“What about the copycat?” Asked Jack.

Clarice watched Will recoil.

“Y’know an intelligent psychopath, particularly a sadist, very hard to catch, there’s no traceable motive, there’ll be no patterns. He may never kill this way again,” Another step. “Have doctor Lecter draw up his psychological profile you seemed very impressed with his opinion,”

With that Will removed himself from the scene, leaving Clarice to try and clear up the damage he had left in his wake.


	3. apéritif part three

It was still dark when the male awoke the next morning, the night had been less fitful and yet he still felt nowhere near as rested as he wanted to. A side effect of sleeping in a motel for the night instead of his own home it can be presumed. Still he did not wish to wake Clarice and so he shifted out of bed, ensuring that she was still tucked into bed and made his way into the small bathroom making sure to shut the door behind him before turning on the shower.

The water pressure left something to be desired, as did the rather drab blue shower curtain that appeared to match the thin layer of grime that matched everything in the room. Still the heat was at least some level of comfort as it pulled Will away both from the dregs of sleep that still creeped in to the corners of his mind.

Instead he found himself in a forest it must have been night time given the darkness that hugged the leaves, it was just like light enough that he could make out shapes but little else. Focusing on the way that the edges of the forest seemed eerily silent, there was no movement in the leaves. Not a single birdsong. In the center was the most impressive stag Will had ever seen it was tall, well built with a long pair of antlers and a pair of eyes Will could have sworn were looking right through him. It wasn’t moving and yet Will could have sworn it was being drawn closer, and closer and closer.

Graham was ripped from whatever day dream he was having by the sudden shift of the curtain and the appearance of his wife stood outside the bathtub. Given by the fact that she was already dressed in her running outfit he must have lost track of time.

“I’m heading out,” she spoke not noticing the way that he had jumped, or if she had chosen not to comment on it. “You gonna be okay till I get back?”

Will knew just from the sound of her voice that there would be a high amount of concern on her features.

“I’ll be fine,” he answered gently. “Don’t be too long though, we’ve got work to do,”

 

-

 

The sound of a knock against the door filled the motel room. Will stood to open the door. The fact he was still sleeping given away by the fact it was still darkened inside. Still, he was surprised to see not the glaring features of Jack Crawford but rather a suit that could have only belonged to Hannibal Lecter.

“Good morning Will, may I come in?”

“Where’s Crawford?”

“Deposed in court, the adventure will be between us and Clarice today… May I come in?” He pressed again. Will hesitated before moving to step inside.

Hannibal closed the door beside him whilst Will opened the curtains. “No Agent Starling?” he questioned raising a brow at Will.

“She’ll be back later… She uh, goes for a run in the morning. Clears her head, helps her think,”

Hannibal nodded but said nothing, stepping to the kitchenette to collect some utensils and a plate or two.

“I’m very particular about what I put into my body,” He speaks walking back over towards Will who had until that point been leaning sceptical against one of the chairs, though he then got the hint to go and pour some coffee. “Which means I end up preparing most meals myself,” His latest statement was punctuated by the placement of a container onto the table, which he then took the lid off with a pop, revealing some breakfast food. “A little protein scramble to start the day. Some eggs, some sausage,”

Will wasn’t usually in the habit of accepting food from near strangers, but Hannibal gave the impression that he did everything with precision and frankly he was starving. So took a seat at the table and took a bite.

“It’s delicious, thank you,”

“My pleasure. I would apologise for my analytical ambush but I know I would soon be apologising again and you’ll tire of that eventually so I’ll have to consider using apologies sparingly,” Hannibal spoke with slight dismissal

“Just keep it professional,”

“Or we socialise like adults,” The doctor retorted before eating some more of his eggs. “God forbid we become friends,”

“I don’t find you that interesting,” Will shrugged.

“You will… Agent Crawford tells me you have a knack for the monsters”

Something Lecter said stuck a cord with Will as next he was pushing his plate out of the way and was leaning on the table.

“I don’t think the shrike killed that girl on the field,”

Surprisingly Lecter, rather than shying away from Will as most did also leant forward.

“The devil is in the details, what didn’t you copycat do to the girl in the field? What gave it away?”

“Everything,” Will spoke hand rubbing his top lip for a moment. “It’s like he had to show me a negative so I could see the positive, it it it…” The male stopped then just briefly to rub his hands over his face. “That crime scene was practically gift wrapped,”

A look of shock spilt over Lecter’s features. “The mathematics of human behaviour, all those ugly variables,” Will busied himself pouting some more coffee. “Some bad math with that Shrike fellow… Are you reconstructing his fantasies?” 

Will scoffed.

“What kind of problems does he have?”

“Er, he has a few,” He answered dismissively.

“Ever have any problems, Will?”

Will felt himself pull a face then placing a hand over his chest as if to question whether the other was referring to him. “No,” There’s a ghost of a smile on his face as he spoke.

“Of course you don’t, you and I are just alike, problem free nothing about us to feel horrible about,”

“Y’know will I think uncle Jack sees you as a fragile little teacup, the finest china used for only special guests,”

That made Will laugh, a real sound rather than something forced. “How do you see me?”

Hannibal paused then.

“The mongoose I want under the house when the snakes slither by,”

Will was struck by the comment more than he wanted to admit. He was used to Jack who saw him as something breakable, or Clarice who saw him as something terribly human. A weapon was something new.

Luckily any need for his response was halted at the sound of the motel door opening. 

“Will? Are you out of the shower?” Clarice asked her head appearing around the doorway from where she had finished her run. “Oh… Hello doctor,”

“Agent Starling, we were just having breakfast, there’s some left over if you wish to join us,”

“Breakfast?” Clarice repeated tone surprised. “Well that is a surprise, you should know Doctor, Will is very cautious about who he shares a table with,”

“I am not,” Will chimed in, his tone shifting slightly.

Clarice simply hummed in response “that’s why it took weeks for you to go out to dinner with me,” she replied moving about the room. To an outsider, it looked like she was just moving about the motel normally but Will could tell she was keeping an eye on Hannibal. “As for breakfast I’d love some but I think it’s best we get moving,”

 

-

 

The drive to the construction sight was a relatively quiet one, Will was behind the wheel with Hannibal in the passenger seat and Clarice occupying the back of the car. 

“What are you smiling at?” Will asked Hannibal just briefly as the car came to a halt.

Hannibal seemed to Clarice to take a moment to respond, choosing his words carefully. “Peeking behind the curtain. I’m just curious about how the FBI goes about its business when it’s not kicking in doors,”

“You’re lucky we’re not doing house to house interviews,” Noted Will. 

Clarice scoffed at that. “Or paper work,”

Will nodded then before continuing. “We found a little piece of metal in Elise Nichols’ clothes a shred from a pipe threader,”

“Must be hundreds of construction sites all over Minnesota,”

Clarice spoke up then. “It’s a certain type of pipe with a specific metal and coating, makes it easier to shorten the list,”

“What are we looking for?” Hannibal asked turning his attention to the back of the vehicle. Clarice couldn’t help but notice that the doctor seemed to apply strict rules of politeness constantly.

“At this point doctor I’ve learned that we’ll find out when we see it,” She shrugged clambering out of the car. Deciding not to wait for the other two before waiting to go into the building.

The office itself was a reasonably small one, no more than two rooms wide full of filing cabinets and boxes that Will and Clarice did not hesitate to start moving through. Hannibal agent Starling noticed seemed to be sticking to the smaller tasks keeping an eye on both of them. The loud receptionist sat at the front desk spent a good portion of their visit chatting on the phone. Only to turn back to the three of them when she got bored.

“What did you say your names were?”

Clarice turned her head towards the other female. She had learnt a long time ago that answering such questions was her job. “I’m special agent Starling this is my partner Gra-”

 Clarice was cut off by the sound of Will speaking from where he was scanning over a file.

“Garrett Jacob Hobbs?”

“He’s one of our pipe threaders,” The female seemed to note the question in Will’s tone and continued. “Those are all resignation letters the plumbers union requires ‘em whenever members finish a job,”

Will asked for information was not an unusual happening so Clarice simply continued to go through the time sheets in her hands.

“Er, does Mr Hobbs have a daughter?”

“Might have,” The receptionist shrugged.

“Eighteen or nineteen, wind chafed, plain but pretty. She’d have auburn hair, she’d be about this tall,” He spoke gesturing. He must have found something specific he wouldn’t have been describing the profile of their golden ticket for nothing.

“Maybe I don’t know. I don’t keep company with these people,”

“Will?” She questioned.

“He left a phone number, no address.”

“Therefore he has something to hide?” Spoke the doctor clearly not convinced. Not that Will seemed to notice the other’s scepticism too much.

“The other’s all left addresses, he also missed work for days at a time,” Will spoke before turning back to the receptionist. “You have an address for Mr Hobbs?”

So they had a suspect, Clarice knew what was going to follow: Loading all of the paperwork into the car.

 

-

 

The drive to the Hobbs household was a tense one. Hannibal was in the back this time, although Clarice would have hardly noticed he was there too busy talking to Will about just what it was the three of them could have been walking into. If Clarice had it her way they would have dropped Lecter off somewhere. The home of the suspect was no place for a civilian and yet given what it was likely Garett Hobbs had already done they simply had no time. So instead she simply had him promise to do exactly as she said before climbing out of the car. Her hand already resting on her FBI badge. Will took his medication before following her. 

They only took a few steps towards the house, Will looking about them as if trying to memorise the property, before the front door opened and out came Mrs Hobbs, pushed by her husband, bleeding heavily from a wound on her neck. She was screaming as the door shut behind her.

In a moment Clarice was dashing forward, pulling her gun from its holster as Will went to the female’s side. The woman was rasping, Will’s hands around her neck trying to stop the bleeding. It was unsurprising Clarice was faced with one of the lambs from her past, but she soon dismissed it. Doctor Lecter meanwhile stayed a few feet back. A fact Clarice could not think very much of given that he had likely not seen a murder before. In a few seconds, Mrs Hobbs was dead. 

Will, trembling, stood from where he had been crouched and following Clarice also reached for his firearm before then kicking the door down. All two quickly the pair of them were thrown into the middle of the fight again. Checking as they turned a corner Clarice did her best to watch both what was going on around them as well as her own husband.

“Garret Jacob Hobbs!” Yelled Will. “FBI!”

The pair moved forward in sync through the house quickly coming to where Hobbs was stood in the kitchen, his daughter in his grasp a knife at her throat.

“Mr Hobbs it’s over, put the knife down,” Clarice spoke clearly keeping Hobbs in her aim. “You don’t want to hurt your daughter and you don’t have to,”

Clarice doing her best to defuse the situation as a moment later Hobbs was cutting the girl’s throat with a yell.  It was then that Will shot him. First in the shoulder, and when that did not put him down, seven more times in the torso.

Hobbs then crumbled against the counter as Will slid on his knees to get to the girl. Luckily her cut was not as deep as her mother’s but it was still dangerous as Clarice searched her jacket for her cell phone to ring for an ambulance. Will was still shaking, not applying enough pressure the girl was gasping at her own shock and Clarice could have sworn for a moment that they were going to lose her.

“See?” Whispered Hobbs from the corner in a tone that made the female’s blood boil in anger. “See?”

Will upon hearing this froze, whilst Clarice was surprised by the sudden appearance of Hannibal in the room. He stepped over to the pair on the floor in a moment, straight past Starling as if she were not there at all and crouched behind the girls head. His hand moved to her neck, his grip stronger than Will’s, more assured as if willing the younger to live just by himself.


	4. amuse-bouche part one

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter features the first scene I've had to create myself rather than simply altering it: fingers crossed I did a okay job.

Fatigue clouded Clarice’s mind as they drove to the forest. She knew why a trip to Hobbes’ hunting cabin required both her and Will, considering what they had been through, but she had made it very clear to Jack that she wanted to give Will space from the whole mess not that she was ever listened to. 

Eventually, the car came to a halt and Clarice was almost amused to find that Will was still asleep in the seat beside her, his face pressed up against the glass of the window. Were it any other situation Agent Starling would have been tempted to let him sleep, but they were at work and they had to act quickly. So instead she leaned across and placed a hand gently on his arm. 

“Will, we’re here… You’ve got to wake up,”

Will took a moment and then nodded. “How long was I out for?”

“About half an hour, I figured you needed the rest. We’re deep in the forest now, the cabin’s over there,” the younger spoke with a tilt of her head in the right direction. 

The next step was getting out of the car and then putting on the statement blue gloves of the crime scene before the three agents were allowed into the cabin, Will armed with a torchlight from one of the local officers, Clarice herself choosing to keep her arms crossed tightly against her chest.

Inside the room was dark, stuffy, filled with both animal heads and tools, though what really caught Clarice’s attention was the deer carcass still lying out on the table. Waiting for a butcher that would never come.

Will turned his head towards his wife just briefly, something that didn’t skip her notice, but then she had always been sensitive around animals given what happened when she was a child. There was a good reason behind her vegetarianism. Still, she watched as she lost Will’s attention once more and he moved to climb the stairs.

One glance at Jack told her that they would be going the same way.

If downstairs was horrific then upstairs might have been called an abomination. Space filled completely with deer antlers. A very distinct conversation about them back in the lab coming to the forefront of Clarice’s mind.

“Could be a permanent installation in your evil minds museum,” mused Will. A comment Clarice watched Jack disregard.

“Well, what we learn about Garret Jacob Hobbes will help us catch the next one like him. There's still seven bodies unaccounted for,”

“Yeah well he was eating them,” 

“There had to be something left behind,” Clarice spoke moving to brush her hair back out of habit only to find in already pulled back in a ponytail.

“Not necessarily,” Will replied. Moments like this they could have been the only two in the whole cabin given the way they bounced ideas off of each other.

Needless to say, Jack commented again. “Alright what if Hobbes wasn’t eating alone,”

Clarice watched Will’s gaze go back and fix very firmly on the antlers in front of him.

“It’s a lot of work disappearing these girls, butchering them and then not leaving a shred of anything other than what’s in this room,”

“Someone he hunted with?” Agent Starling spoke up trying to go through possibilities.

“Someone who is in a coma,” Answered Jack “Who also happened to be someone he hunted with”

Clarice knew who her superior was referring to Abigail Hobbs. The girl Will and Hannibal had rescued back at the house, who her husband now seemed to feel some form of obligation to.

Her eyes were on Will as Jack spoke and so caught his reaction clearly.

“Abigail Hobbs is a suspect?” She questioned further

“We’ve been conducting house to house interviews at Hobb’s residence, and this property also. Hobbs spent a lot of time here. Spent a lot of time with his daughter here. She would make the ideal bait wouldn’t she?” Jack seemed to have his mind set on the idea much to her husbands’ disgust.

“Hobbs killed alone,” Will’s tone was firm.

 

-

 

The sight of Clarice Starling checking up on her partner was not an unusual one, so Will did not stir when he spotted her making her way towards him. What did catch his interest was the fact that she was not alone. Alana Bloom, a friend to both of them, walked at her side.

“Hi,” Will greets at the sight of both of them, once again pushing his laptop into his bag. “I thought that you were on a case?”

“Hi,” Clarice echoed her hand reaching just briefly to brush against his arm. She went to answer his next question only to be interceeded by Alana. 

“How are you, Will?”

The question made the male smile, but it was his awkward uncomfortable kind. “Err… I have no idea,”

“Um, we didn’t want you to be ambushed,” Alana spoke, wincing standing with her hand clasped awkwardly. 

“But this is an ambush?” Will questioned.

“The ambush happens in about five seconds when Jack Crawford walks through that door,” Clarice spoke.

Sure enough, as she was talking the male in question had arrived to stand at the table beside them. 

“And there’s Jack,” Will breathed moving from where he had previously been sitting to put himself behind the table, as if he was almost seeking a barrier, or was at least certainly more uncomfortable than he had been in moments prior.

“How was class?” Despite the question, he clearly wasn’t here for small talk.

“Um, they applauded,” Will responded. Busy attempting to tidy up his desk. “It was inappropriate,”

“Well, the review board would disagree you’re up for a commendation,” That caught Will’s interest as his eyes flitted to Jack. “And they’ve okayed active return to the field,”

“The question is,” Clarice cut in. “Do you want to come back to all of that? After what happened last time?”

Will felt himself pause and was suddenly very aware of the fact that Clarice also likely had very strong opinions on the subject, and yet seemed to be letting him choose for himself.

“I want him back in the field,” Jack spoke as if Will was not even there, earning himself a glare from his favourite agent. “And I told the board I’m recommending psych eval,”

“Are we starting now?” Will asked eyes expectantly falling on Alana. 

“Oh, the session wouldn’t be with me. Hannibal Lecter would be the better fit, your relationship isn't personal you might benefit from the perspective of an outsider,”

Jack, who simply seemed eager to get what he wanted was eager to pick up the point. “But if you are more comfortable with Doctor Bloom…”

“No,” Will answered sharply. “I’m not going to be comfortable with anybody inside my head,”

“You’ve never killed anyone one before Will,” Alana’s tone was considerably softer. “It’s a deadly force encounter it’s a lot to digest,”

Will didn’t want to feel trapped any longer and so began to step towards the door. “I used to work homicide,” He turned to his partner. “Do you wanna get out of here? I wanna get out of here,”

“Will,” Clarice’s tone was at least attempting to be grounding, and the male noticed how she didn’t attempt to get in his was but stayed with him as he walked.

“The reason you currently used to work homicide is because you didn’t have to stomach for pulling the trigger,” Jack spoke sharply. “You just pulled the trigger ten times,”

“Wait,” Will spoke feeling better with his back towards open space. “Psych eval isn’t a formality,”

“No. It’s so I can get some sleep at night. Without fearing that I’ve put one of my best agents in danger. I asked you to get close to the Hobbs thing, I need to know you didn’t get too close,” Will feels himself glance at the floor then, guilt clear. “How many nights did you spend in Abigail Hobb’s hospital room Will?” His eyebrows raised to show that he was serious.

“Therapy doesn’t work on me,” Will spoke clearly avoiding the question.

“Hmm…” Jack hummed stepping forward. “Therapy doesn’t work on you because you won't let it,”

“Because I know all the tricks,”

“Well, perhaps you need to unlearn some,"

Will took off his glasses and pinched the bridge of his nose. Turning to Clarice then. “What do you think about all this?” After all, if Will was going back to the field then it would change things for both of them.

“I don’t like the idea of you in the field, though I can understand why Jack might want it. I trust Doctor Lecter’s opinion but I certainly don’t think you should be made to be anyone’s guinea pig,” 

Alana stepped forward then. 

“Why not have a conversation with Hannibal? He was there he knows what you went through,”

Rather than answering Will simply looked at Jack, looked at Clarice and then turned away.

“C’mon Will,” Jack called out. “I need my beauty sleep!”

 

-

 

Agent Starling had, of course, had to go back to work after the conversation with Will had ended somewhat unsuccessfully. Luckily when she got back to the beaux it was simply paperwork awaiting on her desk. Still, the conversation with Will played over in her head. There had to be something she could do rather than just simply turning into a sitting duck waiting for something to go wrong again.

Picking up her phone, she called the number Jack had given her weeks ago grateful for her current privacy. The person on the other side picked up quickly.

“Hello, Doctor Lecter,”

“Agent Starling, well this is a surprise. To what do I owe the pleasure?”

 “It’s about Will…” She breathed resting her head on her hand, fingers scratching at her neck.

“I thought as much, is something wrong?”

“No, nothing. Just I think he’s going to take up Alana’s idea and come for a session and I need you to promise me that you’ll help him,”

“Of course, I always take care of my patients,”

“I don’t doubt it Doctor but… Will can be difficult at times, he has the habit of pushing people away but if he’s going to come back into the field he’s going to need to have a support system,”

“Is that not supposed to be your role, agent Starling?” Hannibal’s tone was probing, a well-seasoned therapist used to getting into his head.

“Of course, but you said so yourself Will has a special talent, it’s not something I can fully grasp. He’s going to need more than me,” 

Hannibal hummed on the other side of the phone. “Has anyone ever told you you’re incredibly empathetic agent Starling, no wonder you were drawn to the force,”

“Not specifically, but thank you for the compliment,”

Clarice couldn’t help but wonder if all of her conversations were going to follow the same template, a tennis game she didn’t fully understand even though she had now found herself playing several rounds.

“I give you my word that I’ll do my best to give Will what he needs,” Hannibal spoke.

“Thank you, Doctor,” There’s sincerity in her tone.

“My pleasure. Take care now Agent Starling I have a feeling we will be speaking again soon,”


	5. amuse-bouche part two

Will Graham had not before set foot in Hannibal Lecter’s office, and yet had he been asked to describe what it might look like he would be right about the artwork, high walls and cabinets of artefacts. Hannibal Lecter considered himself to be a man of good taste and that showed in the area’s where he was most relaxed.

His attention was glued to the large bookshelves on the second flaw of the room when he heard Hannibal take a step towards him. Turning back to the therapist his attention was drawn to the file in his hands.

“What’s that?” Will called out

“Your psychological evaluation,” Hannibal answered. “You’re totally functional and more or less sane. Well done,”

Will took a step towards the other although the two were still separated by the two floors, wary of the amused look on the doctor’s features.

“Did you just rubber stamp me?”

“Jack Crawford can lay his weary head to rest knowing he didn’t break you and our conversation can continue unobstructed by paperwork,”

Will nods just slightly as he continues to pace forward.  
“Jack thinks I need therapy,” His voice sounds almost offended at the thought, stiff, defensive.

“What you need is a way out of dark places when Jack sends you there,”

“Last time he sent me into a dark place I brought something back,”

“A surrogate daughter?” Hannibal guesses, much to Will’s surprise. Hannibal himself seemed occupied moving to his desk in the centre of the room. “You saved Abigail Hobb’s life you also orphaned her. That comes with certain emotional obligations regardless of empathy disorders,”

“Well you were there, you saved her life too. Do you feel obligated?”

“Yes,” Hannibal answered then turning to face Will as if wanting him to see the honesty on his face. “I feel a staggering amount of obligation. I feel responsibility. I fantasised about scenarios where my actions may have allowed a different fate for Abigail Hobbs,”

Will pulled his gaze from Hannibal eyes lingering in the corners of the room. “Jack thinks Abigail Hobbs helped her dad killed those girls,”

“How does that make you feel?”

Will clearly did not like to be probed so clearly. Pulling a sarcastic face. “How does it make you feel?”

“I find it vulgar,”

“Me too,” Will replied quickly, appreciating even a moment of someone being on the same side as him.

“And entirely possible,”

“It’s not what happened,”

“Jack will ask her when she wakes up, or,” He corrects. “He’ll have one of us or Agent Starling ask her,”

“Is this therapy or a support group?”

“It’s whatever you need it to be,”

Graham had gotten completely across one side of the room and proceeded to lean on the bannister.

“And Will, the mirrors in your mind can reflect the best of yourself, not the worst of someone else,”

 

-

 

The sound of bullets being fired on the shooting range was all Agent Starling could hear as she stepped in behind her partner. She stayed back watching for at least a few moments as he attempted to blow off some steam. Then when he had emptied that current clip she stepped forward.

“I don’t think I ever remember a time when you were an accurate shot,” Her tone is teasing, gentle with him in a way that perhaps only she could be.

“It took me ten shots to drop Hobbs, you saw, you were there. If in Jack’s words I’m going to be back in the saddle then I need to do better,” The male spoke, stepping across the line to change over the target.

“Zeller wanted to give you the bullets back,” Clarice breathed. “I told him it probably wasn’t his best idea of his for a joke,”

“Probably not,”

“The team will get to know you eventually,”

“Now that,” Will spoke turning around to his wife just to press a very brief kiss to her cheek “Is a funny idea,”

Another shot was next, Clarice watching intently.

“You’re too rigid Will,” She spoke reaching out to place a hand on his shoulder. He didn’t jump as he had a habit of doing with others but rather simply relaxed the contact almost soothing.

“Yeah well, you try getting stabbed,”

“No thanks, I’d rather leave that to my partner,” She joked. Moving his arms slightly and getting him to shift his feet before pressing a kiss to his shoulder. Will was hyper-aware of just why she was so invested in making sure that he could shoot properly. “See if that helps,”

Sure enough, the next round was much more successful.

“You come all the way down here because you’re worried I can’t shoot?”

“Not completely, Jack wanted me to ask what you know about gardening,”

  
-

 

The team were already hard at work by the time Will arrived at the crime scene, Clarice had left earlier while he himself had travelled with Jack. Still, he spotted her crouching in the dirt alongside Zeller and Katz when the two of them approached the tape line.

“So Lecter gave you the all clear, therapy might work on you after all,”

“Therapy is an acquired taste that I have yet to acquire but it uh, served your purpose... I’m back in the field,”

Jack must have chosen not to respond to that statement instead of moving to the case while moving the tape out of the way.

“Local police found some tire tracks on a hidden service road and some small animal traps in the surrounding area,”

“He... Er… Wanted to keep his crop from being disturbed,”

“All that’s missing is the scarecrow,”

Will wasn’t left with much time to contemplate as soon Price was on his feet talking through everything at greater detail. His eyes finally drawn to what was lying in front of him, they were corpses or at least what used to be corpses with varying degrees of fungi growing out of their body tissue. It would have been a disturbing sight, was Will not now used to having such things in his head.

“Okay, we’ve got nine bodies, various stages of decay as you can see all very well fertilised,”

It was Katz’s turn then.

“He buried them in a high nutrient compost. he was enthusiastically encouraging decomposition,”

And then Zeller

“They were buried alive with the intention of keeping them that way, I mean at least for a little while,”

It was Price that moved to clarify “long enough for the fungus to eat away any distinguishing characteristics,”

“Wine and rebar were used to administer intravenous fluids after they were buried, he was feeding them something,”  
It was then that Clarice spoke up “and there were no restraints, other than the dirt,”  
Will pulled a face at that. Clearly, they must have been in some sort of coma.

“The other end of the air supply system comes up over there,” Spoke Katz “It isn’t a very considerate clean air solution which clearly wasn’t a priority because he isn’t lazy,”

“No. No, he’s not,” Will breathed before the others all stood to leave him alone, agent Starling’s hand brushing his arm just briefly as she moved passed.

 

-

 

The sight of her husband alone on a crime scene was something Clarice was almost used to at this point. Despite the fact that she had developed the habit of not watching him too closely. It was simply easier for him not to feel watched as he walked back through a crime scene, and for her not to worry about just where his mind was in that moment. 

Still, there was something about this latest case that meant she did not stray too far. Will had lost all contact to the outside world she knew that, but she couldn’t help but wonder just what he at least thought he was doing at that moment. It was something unsightly she was certain and yet ultimately her interest was not misplaced as she watched Will kneel beside one of the bodies, the corpses’ hand moved to grab his arm. The killer's last victim clearly wasn’t dead and was certainly in that moment conscious.

“Guys!” Clarice yelled hoping to alert the rest of the team. “We’re going to need some help over here,”


	6. amuse-bouche part three

Clarice Starling watched as a letter fluttered across Dr Lecter’s desk. The bottom of the paper signed with his rather distinctive signature.

“This may have been premature,” Will’s hands move back to his pocket as he speaks. He’s agitated in a way that she was beginning to become all too familiar with.

“What did you see?… Out in the field,” It seemed Starling was always going to be impressed with the manner in which Lecter seemed almost aloof regardless of the situation that was placed in front of him.

Will seemed to spare her a glance for only a moment before speaking. A small reminder that she would not have normally been privy to such conversation were they not on official FBI business. It was almost strange seeing Will so vulnerable. She was used to it of course, in their relationship but seeing it with someone different was a new sensation.

“Hobbs.”

“An association?”

“No. A Hallucination, I saw him lying there in someone else grave,”

“Did you tell Jack what you saw?”

“No,” Will spoke firmly, pulling a face like he was disgusted at the thought.

“A stress not worth reporting, you displaced the victim of another killer’s crime with what could arguably consider your own,”

Dr Lecter’s comment led Clarice to take in a sharp breath though she said nothing.

“I don’t…” Will dismissed “consider Hobbs my victim,”

This seemed to catch the other male’s attention, given away by a tilt of his head.

“What do you consider him?”

“Dead,”

A silent moment passed between them in which none of the three of them spoke.

“Is it harder imagining the thrill other people feel killing now that you’ve done it yourself?”

Will, apparently unable to summon the words he needed to respond simply nodded in the way that a child might when you asked them if they’d seen something under their bed.

Hannibal didn’t see fit to respond with words, rather instead choosing to include Starling back in the conversation once more.

“The arms why did he leave them exposed? To hold their hands? To feel their lives leaving their bodies?”

Hannibal walked closer to where Will was leaning against the column, Clarice found herself spinning around in her chair.

“Yeah no, that’s too esoteric for someone who took the chance to bury his victims in a straight line. He’s more practical,”

“He was cultivating them?”

“He was keeping them alive. Feeding them intravenously,”

“But your farmer let his crops die, save or the one that didn’t”

Clarice spoke up then voice cutting into the room. “The victim we found alive died on their way to the hospital,”

“No, no,” Will added. “They weren’t crops they were the fertiliser. Their bodies were covered in fungus,”

Hannibal stayed silent as if observing the way they worked in tandem.

“A fungus mirrors the human brain,” Clarice spoke. “Don’t they have this intricate web of  
connections letting them communicate with each other?”

“Maybe he admires their ability to connect the way human brains can’t”

“Well,” Hannibal spoke amused. “Your’s can,”

The comment made her husband laugh, a smile tugging at both her and the doctor’s features. It was easy to see where the sessions with Lecter made things easier for Will. If she was being honest she would admit there was something settling about the fact.  
“Not physically,”

“Is that what your farmer is looking for? An ability to connect?”

Will raised his eyebrows in response.  
-  
One of the fungi covered corpses was stretched out on the table in front of Will. The sight not being as shocking as it might have been some time ago. Price and Zeller had been hard at work running what tests they could and so wanted to report back their thoughts to the rest of the team. Regardless of this Clarice, Crawford and Katz were all busy which meant the two scientists had been left with Will alone.

“What were they soaked in?”

“A highly concentrated mixture of hardwoods, shredded newspaper and pig poop perfect for  
growing mushrooms and other fungi,”

“It’s not the mushrooms though, they all died of kidney failure,”

Then at that moment, as if she had heard her queue Katz came rushing into the lab a report of some kind in hand. “dextrose in all the catheters, probably used some kind of dialysis or parastoltin to pump fluids after all the circulatory systems broke down,”

“Force-feeding them sugar water?” Will wasn’t sure, mind beginning to reach for conclusions.

‘You know who loves sugar water? Mushrooms. They crave it,”

“Recovering alcoholics they crave that sugar,” responded turning to at his side. “Don’t take that personally buddy,”

“Oh, I’m not recovering,”

“Feed sugar to the fungus in your body, the fungus creates alcohol. so it’s friends helping friends really,”

Will’s fingers fiddled with the coffee cup in his left hand as he listened to the others.

“It’s not just recovering alcoholics who have compromised endocrine systems,” That caught the team’s attention. He moved forward, finally able to see the answer laid out so plainly in front of him, “They all died of kidney failure?”

Zeller nodded.

“Death by diabetic ketoacidosis,” Will spoke as if the answer was obvious.

“Did you know they were diabetics,” Katz asked arms crossed about her chest.

“No,” Zeller spoke waving his finger at the female. “No, we don’t know their diabetic,”

“No,” Will spoke more firmly. “No they’re all diabetics, he induces a coma and he puts them in  
the ground,”

“How is he inducing diabetic comas,”

“Changes their medication; So he’s a doctor or a pharmacist or he works somewhere in medical services,”

“He buries them and feeds them sugar water long enough for their circulatory systems to soak it up,”

“So he can feed the mushrooms,”

“We dug up his mushroom garden,”

“Yeah,” Will nodded solemnly. “He’s gonna wanna grow a new one,”  
-  
Storming a building with the bureau was not something that Starling was going to get used to. Running, yelling, such heavy artillery wasn’t necessarily Clarice’s style. It made her almost grateful that it was Jack’s duty to run the operation rather than her’s. Luckily there was no running on her part as they took the back entrance to the supermarket. Jack eager to brief her and Will about just who they were about to find inside.

“She’s the chain’s tenth customer to disappear after filling a prescription for insulin. Second to disappear from this exact location,”

“The other eight?” Clarice questioned as the three of them walked further into the building

“From all over the county. One pharmacist from all over the county too,”

“Floater huh?” Will asked

“Floater’s floating,” Jack replied gesturing to the nearby pharmacy desk. As they walked the other agents had customers drop to their knees. Trying to give them as much control as they could have over the situation. “Right here. Still logged into his work station,”

The rest of the few steps were silent. Clarice’s mind raced as she tried to prepare herself to what they were about to face. Killer’s were always unpredictable. Especially when they knew they were about to be caught.

“Everyone please stop what you are doing. Put your hands in the air!” Jack spoke, his tone unyielding. The kind that left very few chances to question him.

“Special agent Jack Crawford. Which one of you is Eldon Stammets?”

A worker who’s badge read ‘C. STEVENS’ began to stammer. It wasn’t every day that the FBI appeared at your workplace asking for a coworker after all. “Wh- Eldon was just here. Just now!”

“Is his car still in the parking lot?” Asked Will.

Clarice watched as Steven’s turned unable to give a quick reaction.

“His car!” Pressed Jack.

Moments later agents Starling was chasing behind Stevens as he pointed to the suspect’s car outside. Will took a baton from one of the armed officers and smashed the front window on the right side. Clarice meanwhile headed straight for the trunk pulling it open as soon as she was able.

The smell that wafted up into her face at that moment was putrid, and her heart sunk for the poor woman she knew was more than likely inside. Still, so long as she was alive that was what mattered.

Sure enough, Will was at her side in a second, the two of them not hesitating to stick their hands into the dirt. The woman was indeed still alive. A mask fixed over her features so that she could breathe. Will must have found a pulse as seconds later he called out.

“She’s alive!”

Leading Jack to approach, a tissue very firmly held to his nose and mouth to grant him so protection. Even then he could not be prevented from coughing.

“ENT’s now!” Jack yelled, causing a pair of paramedics to dash over about as fast as their feet could carry them. Meaning that the three of them had to move away to give them space to do their work.

“Alright, we have his name. We know his address, we have his car…” Whatever point Crawford was about to make was halted as Price rushed over. By the look on his face, Clarice knew that this was not about to be any form of good news.

“Jack we just checked the browser history at Stamet’s work station?”

“Am I gonna wanna hear this?”

“No… And yes, but mostly no,”

Whatever Clarice had pictured at that moment what they were about to be read by Katz as she typed away on the computer. Starling liked the other female, in such a male-dominated environment she had found that the company of other women could only be positive, and she was certainly grateful for the discretion she showed when talking about something so negative.

“Freddie Lounds,” Zeller spoke.

“tattlecrime.com," Jack spoke with a nod and recognition.

Somewhat regretfully Katz began to read off the monitor. “The FBI isn’t just hunting psychopaths, they’re headhunting them too. Offering competitive pay and benefits in the hopes of using one demented mind-“

Clarice did not miss the odd look on Zeller’s face as Katz faltered.

“It’s all right,” The sound of her voice surprised even her. “Keep reading,” She had to make a conscious effort not to go looking for Will even as Katz did.

“It’s about-“

“Go on,” it was Crawford who stepped in this time.

“One demented mind to catch… She's gone into a lot of detail,”

“Son of a bitch,” Jack swore slamming his hands on the desk.

“So Stammets knew. Knew we were looking for him. Knew all about Will,” Clarice spoke, sharing what she deemed to be obvious to the rest of the team.

“He knew about you too,” Katz spoke. “If he read that far down the article,”

Starling watched Will bristle in her peripheral vision.

“That doesn’t matter, I’m an agent, Will isn’t…” Her gaze moved to Jack alone. “What’s the plan now?”

“The plan is I go talk some sense into Freddie Lounds,”


	7. amuse-bouche part four

Crime scenes were something familiar to Starling now. She could deal with blood stains and corpses without so much as a blink, but the thought that Stammets was out there. Taking lives when they had been so close to catching him made her far too angry. 

“What the hell could he have been hoping to gain from this?” Clarice asked turning to her superior. Jack Crawford was many things it was true and was certainly not the easiest boss to work for. She had not forgotten what Price had told her on her first day working for him ‘Jack always liked a pretty face’ she had been the first female on the team and such a comment had a lot to account for, but she still valued him as a sane voice of reason.

The other opened his mouth to respond, but the sound of Lounds’ voice calling his name left Jack gawking like a fish.

“Miss Lounds!” He called out in response, dashing to where she was sat in the back on an ambulance. No matter of Clarice’s personal opinion of the reporter was, from what she had heard the other had been through that day it was not something that she would have wished on her enemy.

Jack stepped in the other females direction and there was nothing Clarice could do but follow.

“Go ahead and stand down officer,” Jack spoke revealing the policewoman that had been at her side. “Miss Lounds are you alright?”

She didn’t answer the question, rather looked around unable to focus, scattered almost. 

“Where’s Will Graham?”

“Why?” Clarice asked quickly. Jack clearly didn’t hear her.

“We have an eyewitness to the crime we don’t need Will Graham,” 

“That’s not why I’m asking,”

There was something about the fear in the other’s voice that made Clarice feel so very suddenly very cold. 

Jack turned then yelling at some officers nearby. “Someone find me, Will Graham!”

“What does this have to do with Will?” Clarice couldn’t help but press. Her mind reaching for far too many conclusions all of which happened to place her husband in danger.

“He was talking about people having the same properties as a fungus. Thought’s leaping from brain to brain. The way they evolve. What Will said to Lecter was right Stammets is looking for connection.”  
Clarice didn’t near anymore moving to reach for her phone in her pocket. “He’s going after Will, we have to warn him,” She was hardly about to wait for permission before calling him. “Will’s in danger that means Abigail is too,”

Jack didn’t seem to hear her. She would suppose after that he was far too practised an officer for that.

“What did you tell him?” Sounds didn’t answer. “I need to know what you told him about Will Graham,”

“I told him about the Hobbs girl,”

“What did you tell him?” Jack pressed further though Clarice was surprised he didn’t lose his temper at that statement alone. The phone rang out in her hands out at Lounds’ next comment made her stomach drop.

“Everything. He wants to help Will Graham connect with Abigail Hobbs. He’s gonna bury her,”

-

Spending his spare time at the hospital was not an unusual feat for Will anymore. Still, he was grateful when the lift was empty. The male was annoyed by unnecessary conversations at the best of time and that factor only worsened when he was tired.

He wasn’t expecting contact, so when he stepped out of the lift he was perplexed, to say the least. At least until he saw the name on caller ID.

“Hello,” He greeted.

“Will,” It was the sound of Clarice’s panicked tone on the other side. “Have you made it to the hospital?”

“Yeah what-“ Clarice clearly didn’t care what he was going to say given the way that she saw fit to cut him off.

“Stammets knows about Abigail, we think he’s going to do something,”

That was all Will needed to hear. He disconnected the call, sliding the phone into his back pocket and tugged his gun from it’s resting place in his holster. It was only a few paces to Abigail’s room, he would be able to make sure she was safe and then wait for back up. Except when he reached her room her bed was empty. Sheets a mess. Abigail was gone.

Immediately fearing the worst Will jogged back towards the nurse's station. Not caring about anything else.

“Where is she?” he asked. His tone was panicked. “Abigail Hobbs. The girl in 408 where is she?”  
The nurse was clearly confused. “They took her for tests,”

“Who took her?” He asked once, voice quiet then again louder. “Who took her!”

Clearly, she was going to be no help. Will had no choice. He had to try and get to them first. Running towards the stairwell it was a guess based on intuition that leads him down the stairs. He couldn’t have claimed to have been thinking too much as he raced towards the basement. It was clear that Stammets was going to want as little fuss to be created as possible if he was going to escape unnoticed. At that moment all Will was thinking about was finding Abigail.

Somehow Will caught up with the pair. Yelling “Hey!” just once before firing a round into Stammet’s shoulder. Leading him to fall back against the brick of the hospital wall.

Keeping his gun trained on the other male Graham stepped forward, kicking away the gun that had previously been in the other's hand before reaching behind him to check Abigail's pulse, relieved when he found her alive. Eldon spent the whole time whimpering.

"What were you going to do to her?" Will's voice is cold. 

"We all evolved from mycelium I'm simply reintroducing her to the concept,"

"By burying her alive?"

"The journalist said you understood me," The other spoke trying to move his shoulder and then cowering from the pain. 

"I don't,"

"Well, you would have. You would have. If you walk through a field of mycelium they know you are there. They know you are there. Their spores reach for you as you walk by. I know who you're reaching for," Eldon spoke looking towards Abigail in a way that made Will feel sick. "I know. Abigail Hobbs. You should have let me plant her. You would have let me plant her. You would have found her in a field, where she was finally able to reach back."

-

“When you shot Eldon Stammets who was it that you saw?” The voice of Hannibal Lecter cut through any thought that Will might have been having at that moment. Preventing his mind from wandering too far. 

Still, it felt almost strange for Will now, being in that office without Clarice. He preferred it when it was the three of them, found thinking things through easier when she was at his side (old habits died hard it seemed) but there were also parts of his mind that he would admit he didn’t want her to see. 

“I didn’t see Hobbs,”

“Then it’s not the ghost of Hobbs that’s haunting you is it?” Doctor Lecter asked leaning forward. Not for the first time, Will found himself wondering just what Hannibal could be getting out of this, but then he found himself realising that it was most likely simply an interesting part of his job.“It’s the inevitability of there being a man so bad that killing him felt good,”

“Killing Hobbs felt just,” When he closed his eyes Will could still feel the gun in his hand firing rounds into the other man’s chest.

“Which is why you’re here, to prove the sprig of zest you feel is from saving Abigail not from killing her Dad,”

“I didn’t feel a sprig of zest when I shot Eldon Stammets,” 

“You didn’t kill Eldon Stammets,” 

Graham was facing away from the other, it made talking easier.

“I thought about it,” He spoke after a taking a moment. “I’m still not entirely sure that wasn’t intention pulling the trigger,” 

“If your intention was to kill him then it is because you understand him, why he did the things he did. It’s beautiful in its own way,”

That was the statement that caught Will’s alarm, making him turn as Hannibal continued from where he was perched on his desk.

“Giving voice to the unmentionable,”

Will scoffed.

“I should have stuck to fixing boat motors in Louisiana, left the crime-solving to my wife,”

He sat back down into his chair while Hannibal laughed, clearly amused by his statement. It was an interesting image being out of the limelight, raising the dogs, cooking dinner, waiting for Clarice to come home. He might have taken such a choice were it not for the fact that the two of them were meant to be in such situations together. He always felt much better when he was out there to watch her back.

“A boat engine is a machine, a predictable problem, easy to solve. You fail there’s a paddle. Where was your paddle with Hobbs,”

It was Lecter’s turn to stand then moving a few short paces across the room to sit down opposite Will.

“You’re supposed to be my paddle, you and Clarice,”

“We are,” he spoke confidently. “It wasn’t the act of killing Hobbs that got you down was it?”

The pair were silent for a long pause.

“Did you really feel so bad because killing him felt so good?”

There was another drawn-out moment before Will spoke again his voice scarcely above a whisper.

“I liked killing Hobbs,”

If Will was expecting some sort of rebuttal from Hannibal he did not receive it, instead, he simply leaned forward. 

“Killing must feel good to God too, he does it all the time. And are we not created in his image?”

“Depends who you ask,” Will spoke gaze fixed to the floor. 

“God’s terrific. He dropped a church roof on thirty-four of his worshippers last Wednesday night in Texas while they sang a hymn,”

“Did God feel good about that?”

“He felt powerful,”

There was a look of horror etched into Will’s features.


End file.
